INTERVIEW #8

Conducted by Jason Barrett
September 22, 2001

Jason Barrett of No Holds Barred Wrestling conducted an exclusive one-on-one interview with the brand new WCW US Champion Rhyno to discuss his match with Tajiri, his thoughts on the WWF's running shows last week and his feelings on whether or not the ECW Title should be brought into the current picture.

JASON: Joining us on today's program is a man who as Paul Heyman would say is the last man to hold the ECW title. He's also a former WWF Hardcore champion, and a man who I simply believe possesses one of the most devastating finishers in all of sports entertainment. He is of course the manbeast, Rhyno. Rhyno Jason Barrett and SA Miller here, how are you this morning.
RHYNO: Great how are you Jason. You know what I'm going to take you to every show and have you do my ring announcing. Announce me every single time.

JASON: I'm available for the right price.
RHYNO: Great job. Great job. Well I won't be paying you, Stephanie will.

JASON: Let's start with this Sunday's match at Unforgiven. You're going to be taking on a former ECW colleague Tajiri for the WCW U.S. Title. What are your thoughts heading into the contest and how important is it for you to bring the belt back to the alliance?
RHYNO: First of all I've got to stay away from his kicks. That's the first thing. Then there's the tarantula. You don't want to get locked into that. Actually me and Tajiri have a little bit of history in ECW. I beat him for the television title in ECW and he beat me a couple of times but I don't like to talk about that. It will be a very good match. The US Title has a lot of history behind it. It's the second most prestigious title in WCW. Legends like Dusty Rhodes, and Arn Anderson have held that title. Guys who are with us now like Booker T, who better than Kanyon and now Tajiri has it and it's something that is a goal of mine, to be the US Champion.

JASON: You also want to make sure you stay away from that green mist because it can make your face look pretty messy.
RHYNO: Yeah for sure. I almost forgot about that. How could I forget about the green mist?

JASON: If for some crazy reason Torrie Wilson decides to stick her nose in your business
RHYNO: She's going to get gored.

JASON: I was just making sure, because if she winds up like Jasmin St. Claire on the final ECW pay per view I think a lot of people will be very happy.
RHYNO: Yeah. Actually talking about Jasmin St. Claire I piledrove her off the second rope which you're talking about right?

JASON: Right.
RHYNO: Anyways the first time I ever did the piledriver off the second rope, it was in the Mid Hudson Civic Center right there in Poughkeepsie, NY.

JASON: You know a lot of Poughkeepsie fans remember your work over here and they sorely miss you.
RHYNO: Yes and I miss them to. You know Poughkeepsie, NY is my second home. It's my home away from home. Actually it's great and I always loved coming to Poughkeepsie and basically the lineup has all wrestled at one point in time thru Poughkeepsie. As far as the Unforgiven pay per view, guys like Rob Van Dam. Who's he wrestling? Let's see if you did your homework.

JASON: Chris Jericho.
RHYNO: Alright. You know I'm proud of you Jason. That will be a fun match to watch plus Kurt Angle vs. Austin.

JASON: I like the Van Dam-Jericho match because I think their styles will work out pretty good. I also like the contest your going to be working with Tajiri because I think Tajiri brings a lot of athleticism and you bring more pure brutality to the table and you've got some athleticism yourself, and the contrast in styles should be interesting.
RHYNO: And wrestling with Tajiri brings a lot out of me and I bring a lot out of him. It will be definitely be a very interesting match and I'm definitely gearing up for this Sunday. I think the whole card is too. It's actually a great card. You've got Edge and Christian, 2 friends of mine that are split and now that we don't travel all 3 of us together I've got to pick and choose. You've got Edge carrying around the IC title and the King Of The Ring trophy. We'll see, it'll be very interesting with that match.

SA: It is definitely shaping up to be a great pay per view. Now Rhyno this is SA and a few moments ago you were talking about Poughkeepsie, NY being your home away from home and that would of course revolve around your days working for the ECW. Now when people hear those 3 letters I believe they think of 1 of 3 things. The word Extreme, Paul Heyman or Rhyno wreaking havoc on somebody. Do you ever miss the atmosphere of ECW?
RHYNO: You know, I think the atmosphere is still there. As far as being in buildings like the Mid Hudson Civic Center. You know which has had wrestling history right there. The ECW arena. Their was a certain atmosphere in buildings like that, that I do miss. Of all the places I've wrestled I would have to say the ECW Arena would be the first in all honesty, and second would be Poughkeepsie because of the history of the building. If the walls could talk in that building, oh my god they'd have a lot to say. Then after that I would have to say the Elks Lodge in Queens. The atmosphere in those 3 buildings you can't really explain it. I never really felt that in the WWF but the atmosphere in the arenas that we run in the WWF give a different kind of feeling. All the other buildings throughout that country that ECW ran, the electricity was there but not nothing like them 3 buildings.

JASON: When you've got 20,000 screaming now it must make a big difference but the one thing about the ECW fans, I always thought that they were very knowledgeable and even if you came up short in your match, as long as you gave your best effort they were going to applaud you for it.
RHYNO: The first time I wrestled in the ECW arena they didn't even know who the hell I was. I had been there a couple of times but Paul didn't put me on the card because I think he knew when I was ready to go out in front of that crowd, because if you went out in front of that crowd and you weren't ready, and you weren't knowledgeable to what that crowd could do to you they would basically eat you up and spit you out. You know actually after my match they were chanting we want more, so it was actually good.

SA: One last thing on ECW and then we'll move on. When ECW and WCW merged, we saw the WCW titles brought into the equation along with the WWF Championships. Do you ever think we will see the ECW Heavyweight title or any of the ECW titles for that matter brought into the mix?
RHYNO: To be honest with you, I hope not because I have the Heavyweight belt at home.

JASON: You don't want to have to take that thing out right.
RHYNO: Yeah really. I'd like to put it on my wall or put it in my safe and keep it there. If they do bring them back, you know right now there's a lot of titles and a lot of titles have meaning in them. I don't know if they're needed right now because you don't want to give everything all at once either. If they do, they do and if I have to give the title back, I have to give the title back. I mean it would be an honor to put it around my waist again and defend it you know but...

JASON: If you had your way right now it's staying home.
RHYNO: It's nicely tucked away right now.

JASON: At least that way you don't have to worry about giving it up.
RHYNO: Exactly.

JASON: Now on a light hearted note. How much extra are you paying Heyman to put you over the way he does? He loves you!
RHYNO: Oh god, too much. Actually, can you blame him? When you see talent like this, I mean nah. I asked him a couple of weeks ago, what did you think when you first seen me? Cause when I first worked out with ECW, he said I saw a kid who I knew was going to be a star. He likes the way I conduct myself as far as outside the ring too, professionally.

JASON: If anyone knows the Rhyno character inside and out it would be Paul Heyman.
RHYNO: Also I always had one thing set in my mind as far as when I wrestled and that was to go out there and be intense. Sometimes I do some stuff that was funny. Very rarely but once in a while. You'll see that on house shows and stuff but basically I go out there and wrestle hard and he seen that and as far as interviews and being in front of a camera, I was never exposed to anything like that until I went to ECW and he helped me out with that. So basically, he brought something out of me that I don't think anybody else could've and there's a lot of other things that I'm working on. You never stop learning. Some things work, some things don't but what better place to work than the WWF because they know how to bring things out of people too. Especially Vince. I'll sit back and watch him work sometimes and it's just amazing.

JASON: The head honcho of wrestling, you can't put it any other way.
RHYNO: No you couldn't. I also try to pick Paul's brain and try to pick other guy's brains like Fit Finlay as far as wrestling and I sit back and watch Vince. I don't know if he sees me watching him but I listen to him when he's critiquing things.

JASON: He's been doing things for 25-30 years and if anyone knows anything about the business, it would be Vince McMahon. We're speaking with Rhyno here on No Holds Barred. Rhyno your character has always been one which has loved to inflict pain on others. Your gore on Chris Jericho thru the Smackdown set is still one of the best displays of punishment I've ever seen. What do you think goes thru your opponents mind when they're alone reading their script and they see that they're scheduled to take a gore thru a table, wall or TV set from yourself?
RHYNO: Really there's not too many scripts that float around. In the WWF the wrestlers have a lot of freedom. We can be creative on our own because we know what we can do and we know what we can't do and we know our limits. Which is good because you don't have anybody saying you have to do this or you can't do that. It gives us a lot of freedom to go out there and they took a notice to something we did to give us a job and that which they took notice in they liked and that's what got us to the dance, that being the WWF. Sometimes people know what's coming and sometimes don't. Sometimes we make magic like the gore thru the TV set and that was the last time that was used.

JASON: Do you ever have a time where a guy comes up to you afterwards and says "Man you killed me with that gore"?
RHYNO: You know a lot of wrestlers, like the time when Tazz gored me he knocked the wind out of me (laughs) and I never told him. A lot of wrestlers they don't like to say this hurts or that hurts. I think it's the male ego running wild but you do get respect because when people know when you're hurt. They can tell. You can see it when someone's getting up and they're in pain and their face just cringes up or they grab at their back or something but people don't put it over. I think it's an ego thing but you get more respect that way. It's kind of hard to explain but hopefully you make some sense of it.

JASON: It's a backstage thing. Keep it quiet and just do the job and make it look good.
RHYNO: Yeah kind of like that but it's really hard to explain is what I'm trying to say. You do get respect for not crying about this and that injuries because we've got to work over it.

SA: Now Rhyno, there are a lot of people that believe you could get over even more if you were given more mic time. Now tell me, have WWF officials talked with you about having more of a vocal presence?
RHYNO: Some people don't like what I did in ECW. I'm not in any rush. As far as maybe changing up my promos and stuff, I'm not in any rush because once you cross that line you can't go back and there might be a certain mystique about it without saying too much, but I do want to talk because I feel it's very important. Certain things like the stuff I did with Stephanie and Chris Jericho leading up to Smackdown and Summerslam, that was fun. You know about the pictures on the RAW set, I'm sure you've seen that. You know about Chris Jericho saying she enhanced the upper part of her body which I feel is untrue and I really didn't like him speaking bad about the boss.

JASON: One subject which is very touchy and a serious question among many people was the WWF's decision to go ahead with their scheduled events last week in light of the tragedies. President George Bush told the people of America that he wanted them to move forward yet some people didn't feel it was time to move forward, so there's 2 ways of looking at things. We're you opposed or in favor of performing and what was your reason for either stance?
RHYNO: I was definitely in favor of performing. God gave us a gift and not everyone can do it. God gave us the talent.

JASON: The place was packed from what I was told.
RHYNO: Sold out yeah. They did offer refunds to anyone who didn't feel comfortable going and basically the WWF had full support from the government. I was proud that the WWF did that opposed to just running highlights of Smackdown for a couple of different reasons. I don't know if anyone knows, but I believe it costs a quarter of a million dollars to do a live show.

JASON: Wow, Did not know that.
RHYNO: It's very expensive to do that, so the WWF automatically takes a hit. They didn't run any commercials or not commercials, I meant sponsors. They didn't do any of that. They didn't run any angles or plug the pay per view. They might have plugged it verbally but as far as leading up to the pay per view.

JASON: You didn't see the logos and flash screens.
RHYNO: Exactly. The simple fact was the whole show was geared to give people as far as wrestling, we went out there to entertain and I was in full support of doing it. You had the option. You didn't have to go out there and you wouldn't have been looked down upon if you didn't do it. We did what we do best. Personally I was honored to be on the card and I was especially honored to be wrestling Kurt in the main event and you know what, for that 3 hours people put the tragic event that had happened, we'll never forget it as long as we live.

JASON: It allowed them to move on and escape from what was going on.
RHYNO: Exactly. They put it in the back of their minds. They laughed, they cheered for their heroes, they booed the people that they hated, and after that they got in their cars and they went home and they got caught up on what they had missed the last 3 hours. Seeing if there was any steps on who did it and why but I think it was very good and I believe that was the first live event since that happened.

JASON: It was.
RHYNO: It was a very gutsy move on the part of the WWF because you don't know if you're going to get a lot of slack for it but they believed in what they were trying to do and I think it's the best thing they could have done because we were sitting in Houston for 2 and a half days and that's all we watched on TV and besides going to work out which it was on the TV set on every station when we went to work out. Me and Edge were talking about going to see a movie just so we can get our mind off of it and I'm glad they ran the show and I don't think they have any regrets.

SA: Now Rhyno every week on our show we like to play a game with our guests called Name Association and being that you're a Detroit native we have some Detroit names which might be familiar to you. First let's start with disgruntled rapper Eminem.
RHYNO: He brings a smile to my face. He's awesome.

JASON: Another entertainer who was actually doing the entrance theme for The Undertaker a while ago. He now has Pamela Anderson by his side which isn't too shabby, that would be Kid Rock.
RHYNO: A guy everybody would like to be.

SA: Future Hall Of Fame Red Winger Steve Yzerman.
RHYNO: Good Athlete.

JASON: Last but not least, even though they're not from Detroit, one of their biggest hits was called "Detroit Rock City", you've got to know this Rock band Rhyno, KISS.
RHYNO: Legends.

JASON: Well Rhyno we want to thank you for the time today. We're looking forward to your match with Tajiri at the Unforgiven pay per view this Sunday night and we wish you nothing but the best of luck in the near future.
SA: Thanks Rhyno.
RHYNO: Thank you.

JASON: Thanks a lot and we'll look for you down the road.
RHYNO: Ok cool, see you guys later.